Settlement reached in Fayette school desegregation lawsuit

The 47-year-old Fayette County school desegregation lawsuit may finally have been resolved. According to U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III, a consent order in McFerren v. County Board of Education of Fayette County was approved in federal court this week.

The agreement, involving the Department of Justice, the Fayette County Board of Education and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, requires the district to implement a controlled choice program — a program aimed at achieving racially integrated schools without forced busing by allowing parents to choose the schools they want their children to attend — by the start of the 2014-15 school year.

Two elementary schools would be closed as part of the agreement and a new elementary school would be built, Stanton said in a news release. Attendance zones would be revised. The consent order filed in the court of U.S. District Judge Thomas Anderson also requires the Fayette County Commission will fund the construction of the new school. The district must encourage students from other attendance zones to enroll in a magnet school program at Northwest Elementary School, which has the highest percentage of African-American students.

"Implementation of the order will ensure that students in Fayette County are educated in a manner consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," Stanton said. Said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the DOJ's Civil Rights Division: "The order shows the type of meaningful progress parties can achieve toward ensuring equal educational opportunities for all students if they are willing to be both steadfast and creative, and we look forward to working with the district over the next few years to implement the order and bring this case to a close."

The long-standing case has been a source of contention in Fayette County in recent years, blamed in part for the ouster of a former superintendent and the fodder for school board campaigns. In 2009, the school board signed a consent order requiring it to build a new school in Somerville, but county officials objected to the cost.